Chin resting in her hand, Taylor contemplated the line of karate competition plaques and the empty spot as she waited for Clint. She had finally given in to her curiosity and researched the competitions and their dates. All the ones that Clint had participated in had dates that had already passed and he had been to none of them.

On the competition websites, there had been posted videos of previous years' events. Out of seven, three of them had featured Clint. Taylor watched enthralled with the way he moved. Most of the time it looked as if gravity didn't exist to him, his movements fluid and graceful. It couldn't be ignored that his whole heart was in it.

So Taylor stared at the evidence that said he had quit and tried to piece together the mystery. She was no further in understanding when the door opened. All curiosity was blown away as Clint rushed in.

Taylor stilled at seeing him. He wore his glasses, his hair was a tangled mess, his eyes were bloodshot, and she was only half certain he was wearing the same clothes as the previous day. There was an eager energy about him that contradicted the disheveled appearance.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Clint blinked at her as if the question made no sense to him as he sat down beside her.

"Yeah, why?"

"You look like you haven't slept at all," she said.

"Oh, I haven't."

Before Taylor could ask why this was, Clint crossed his legs and pulled out his phone.

"I was up all night doing research. I have some follow up questions for you. First, what is the range you can teleport?"

Taylor stared at him like she had no idea who he was. The in-control, quiet person was nowhere to be seen, instead, she was facing a slightly manic scientist.

"Are you high?" she asked.

"What? No. Drugs impair your cognitive function and wreak havoc with your body. Now along with that other question, can you teleport with more than one person?"

Taylor blinked, still unable to wrap her head about this version of Clint. He glanced up from his phone.

"Taylor?" he asked as if she were the one that was acting strange.

"What is this? Why do you want to know all of this? And what do you mean you were up all night doing research? Research on what?"

At the barrage of questions, Clint eased back. Realizing he was still wearing his glasses, he tugged them off and slipped them into his pocket. With the action, the eagerness about him lessened. He ran a hand through his hair, some of his fingers getting caught in tangles.

"Look, I think I figured out how you got your ability and-"

"You what? You're not serious!"

Taylor had spent months trying to put together why she had gotten her power and after one conversation with her, Clint had somehow solved the big mystery. It didn't make sense. But Clint nodded to her exclamation.

"I did. It took hours...well all night to find the right line of inquiry, but I did. There's a scientist out there named Tanner Stark-"

"Like-"

"Yeah, distant cousin. Anyways he has been doing research on how EMFs affect the body-"

Taylor held up her hand, cutting him off. "You're going to have to dumb everything down for me."

"Right." Clint shifted, gathering his thoughts. "Okay, EMFs are electromagnetic frequencies. It's what electronics give off. Everything gives off these frequencies, TVs, microwaves, phones. But they all have different intensities. For instance, newer devices give off high frequencies. Are you following me?"

He looked at her, reverting back to his instructor persona. She nodded, only half sure she was.

"Dr. Tanner believes that these EMFs are effecting the body at a cellular level. Some people are negatively affected by it, they get sick and have weaker immune systems because of it. Sometimes it affects simple things like sleep. While others he believes are being changed for the better by it, their bodies are adapting to the frequencies."

Taylor rubbed her forehead, convinced she was now lost and the dumbest person in the world.

"What does this mean?" she asked.

Clint leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

"It means that when you were hit with a surge of electricity from having your heart restarted that it activated a change within your cells, giving you the ability to teleport."

For a long moment, Taylor looked at him, absorbing the information. On the tail end of understanding was a hole in his theory. Dominic.

"Okay, I can get that," she said. "But what if someone got an ability from something other than getting hit with a defibrillator?"

Clint narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Do you know someone who has?"

Taylor pressed her lips together, it wasn't her secret to tell, but she wanted to understand. Seeing her resistance, Clint relented.

"Hypothetically, that could happen, because there are other forms of electricity that people come into contact with. Being electrocuted, struck by lightning, shocking themselves with an outlet. During thunderstorms, there's electricity hovering in the air. It's why you can zap yourself when touching a door handle." He gestured between them. "We are even electrical to some degree. It's why you can sense someone being in a room without seeing or hearing them. We give off a type of electricity."

Taylor nodded, vaguely fitting together what he was saying with the pieces of Dominic's story.

"Does that help you understand?" Clint asked.

"I think so." She cocked her head at him, trying to puzzle him out. "I'm surprised you spent all night finding this stuff out."

A brightness entered Clint's eyes, lightening the blue of them.

"It's so fascinating, I mean to have a chance to talk to someone with an ability. Seeing how it does change you is a dream come true. Do you mind if I ask you those follow-up questions?"

He looked a bit like an excited kid with a new toy, wanting to show it to everyone. Taylor didn't mind the view.

"Sure," she said, leaning back against the mirror.

"Great. So back to the first question, what is the range you can teleport?"

"Not sure."

"Could you take us to the next city over?"

Taylor shrugged. "Maybe."

"What about across the country?"

She shook her head adamantly. "No."

This made Clint pause. "You said you can jump to a place after seeing a picture, correct?"

"Yes."

"But if I showed you a picture of Paris you can't get yourself there?"

Something in Taylor's chest tightened and tried to crawl up her throat. She shook her head again more forcefully this time. Again Clint watched her, his head cocked.

"So you have limitations," he said.

"Of course."

He nodded, but something in the motion said he wasn't convinced of this fact. Taylor wasn't given time to decipher what he was thinking as he ducked his head.

"Next question: can you teleport more than one person?"

"Yeah."

He typed the answer in. "If you stood in a circle and everyone held hands would you be able to teleport the whole group or just the people holding onto you?"

"I haven't tried that, so I don't know."

"Can you teleport objects or people to different places without you traveling with them?"

She frowned in confusion.

"For instance," Clint said, reading the expression. "If I gave you a cup could you send that cup across the room while you remained in your exact spot?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. Can you teleport into a moving vehicle such as a car, train, subway, plane, helicopter and so now?"

Taylor crossed her arms, feeling as if she were being grilled by a prosecutor.

"I'm not sure. I've had no reason to do that."

Clint nodded again, not at all phased by her lack of concrete answers.

"Can you teleport a car? Or large objects like a refrigerator?"

"Haven't done that either."

"If you were pushed off a building could you teleport midair?"

"Not a theory I've ever had to face."

"Can you teleport to a point that isn't solid, like could you teleport to a point in open air?"

Taylor squirmed, the reality of how little she knew about her ability gnawing at her. After months of having learned to deal with what she could do she was only now seeing that she had barely covered the basics.

"What is this about?" she asked, defensive. "Why does any of this matter?"

Clint set down his phone and knotted his fingers. "If you're willing, I want to train you."

"I thought that's what we were already doing?"

He breathed out slowly. "No. I mean...I want to work with you and your ability."

She stared at him. "You're serious?"

He nodded once. Trying to hold off a flood of emotions, Taylor pushed herself up and paced, overwhelmed with what he had told her, how much she really didn't know about what she could do, and the fact that her life was already crammed to the breaking point. On top of that, according to Dominic, she didn't have a life at all. As she paced, Clint watched her, never speaking.

"You understand that my life is already crazy, right? School is slowly killing me. I don't sleep. And I can barely make it through our normal training sessions without wanting to pass out. How am I supposed to handle more stuff on top of that? Also, why do you want to help? Are you purely curious? Is this for research?" Taylor buried her face in her hands. "I've had this ability for over six months. How is it possible to not know any answers to any of your questions?!"

It felt like the small bit of control she had found in her life was toppled again. She was back to feeling drowned by too many problems and not enough time to make sense of it all.

When Clint rested a hand on her shoulder, she started, not having heard him stand up. He took his hand back.

"Sorry," he said. "You looked like my sisters do when they need comforting or a hug."

Despite the tangled mess in Taylor's tangled mind, the thought of Clint hugging her popped to the surface. Along with the thought that she wouldn't have said no.

"Take a deep breath," Clint said.

Taylor did as instructed, trying to let it calm her spiraling mind.

"We don't have to train," he said. "It was just an offer. I understand that there is a lot about your life that I don't see. I did have a way of doing the training so it wouldn't take away more time. Are you willing to hear about it?"

His voice was calm, reassuring as if she were a skittish animal. Taylor inhaled deeply, reining in her emotions. After a minute where all she need was focusing on breathing, she spoke.

"Okay. What were you suggesting? I'm not saying yes, mind you, but I'll hear you out."

Clint held her gaze, searching to see whether what he said next would send her pacing again.

"You're a quick study when it comes to our self-defense training. With that said, I was thinking we cut our hour in half. The first is used for normal training and the second is for superpower training."

"Don't call it superpower training, it sounds pretentious."

Clint smiled and held up his hands in a placating gesture as if afraid to set her off again.

"Alright, then ability training. What do you think?"

As she thought, Taylor palmed her eyes. Clint buried his hands in his pockets, waiting, his face devoid of emotion. How he felt about her accepting or not was taken out of the equation. Taylor dragged a hand across her forehead. His questions had set off a spark of inadequacy but along with it was a want to know.

Until he had spoken, she thought she was aware of what she could and couldn't do. Now she felt as if she had been thrown back six months to when she was going about learning by trial and error. It had taken her two months to find her current boundaries. She had a feeling with Clint training her that span of time would be vastly decreased.

She let out a breath and dropped her arms. "Alright, where do you want to start?"

****

The storage unit Taylor jumped Clint and herself to was on the edge of the city. Its interior was a quarter the size of what Clint's family gym was. On one side lay extra workout machines, ready to be exchanged if others broke down. At the center of the space was a makeshift arena with floor mats, clearly placed for Clint's usage.

Clint shook his head, adjusting to the strange disorienting feeling of teleporting.

"At least I didn't throw up this time," he said. He spun to face her, clapping his hands together. "Okay, let's get to work."

Taylor crossed her arms, worn out from the self-defense training, but not as much as she normally would be due to the diminished time.

"What do you want to start with?" she asked.

Something darted across his face but before Taylor could wonder what it was, it was gone.

"I want to test a theory so we'll start simple." He took out his phone and pulled up an image of an apartment building, showing it to Taylor. "Can you take me here?"

She stared at him bemused. "Yeah..."

"Great, let's start with that."

As he reached out his hand to Taylor, she backed up a step.

"Wait, why do you want me to take you to a random building. I know you said we'll start simple but that seems like a waste of time."

"The building is in the next city over."

Taylor stiffened, her muscles seizing up. Without realizing it, she was shaking her head. Clint cocked his head, appraising her reaction.

"That's what I thought," he said.

Confused by his comment, Taylor scowled. "What do you mean that's what you thought?"

Clint straightened and Taylor could already hear the lecturing coming. "Taylor, when I train karate to people we usually hit a wall at some point. It's a wall of limitations. There are two types of limitations." He held two fingers, then tucked one under. "One of the body and one of the mind. The one of the body is not being strong enough, fast enough. It's a limitation that can be overcome with time but sometimes not. The limitation of the mind is when you believe something so strongly that it becomes truth."

He motioned to her.

"I asked you to take me to a building and you were relaxed, prepared to do the simple task. I then told you that the distance was one you haven't gone before and you tensed. Everything about you said you couldn't do it."

At the mention of her tension, Taylor tried to relax but it didn't work.

"You may not be able to do it. But there also might be a level of fear that is making you believe that you can't. What are you afraid would happen if you tried to teleport to the next city?"

There was no accusation or condemnation in Clint's voice. Taylor opened her mouth to say that she wasn't afraid, that she simply couldn't do it, but closed it again. Clint noticed the hesitation.

"It's okay to be afraid. What you can do is incredible but it can also be daunting. I want to know if there is something in your mind that is holding you back. Off the top of your head, what's the worst thing that could happen?"

"I wouldn't be able to come back," she said at once.

The answer surprised her and Clint raised his eyebrows then bobbed his head.

"Okay, I get that. It's a long distance and if you were to jump but somehow lose your ability you would be stuck there."

"With no way to get home," she added, thinking about how it would be impossible to explain to her parents or Weston what she was doing hundreds of miles away in the first place.

"I get that. But," he said. "I have a safety net for you."

"Okay..."

"The house I showed you, it's my cousin's. I know he's home and if by some chance your ability stopped working, we wouldn't be stranded. It would take us a long time to get home, but we could." He held his hands out to the side, palms up. "Now, I have just given you a solution to your fear. How do you feel now?"

"Like I want to hit you for being better at this than me."

Clint laughed, the sound echoing around the storage unit. "Okay, I accept that. Know that if you try to jump and you truly can't do it and it's not the fear in your mind, your body won't let it happen. Our limitations work together. I might know I can physically hit a brick wall with my fist but my mind tells me it won't end well. You might not think you can make this jump, but your body does, you have to trust it to watch out for you. So?"

He held out his hand to her. Taylor shook her head, wondering if he was brilliant or she was completely insane for listening. As she grabbed hold of his hand, she found herself trembling with nerves but below that was a hint of anticipation.

"If we do end up having to get your cousin to drive us back you're going to have to explain to my parents why I didn't make it home for dinner."

Clint grinned. "Deal. Now let's see what you can do."

Taylor tightened her hold on him, fear and excitement battling it out in her chest. Clint gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Taylor's heart beat frantically. She swore, closed her eyes and whisked them away.

**********************************************************************

"We have a hulk."

Superheros...um...let me know...thoughts...and...yeah...those things...that you have in your head and...all that stuff...Sorry I'm still stuck on the image of Clint, super attractive, dark, athletic Clint in GLASSES!! *faints* 🦹🏻🦸🏼‍♀️🦸🏻‍♂️

I mean he's wearing glasses!! How is your nerdy side not totally freaking out about this!

And for those of you who don't care at all about his nerdy side, you can give me a dissertation on how you feel about Clint being a superhero trainer and how this will effect Taylor's life!

Also do you think there is wind in the sails of ship Clay or are we still in neutral waters?

I gotta say, I feel like this was what Taylor needed. Someone who is going to help push her to explore her ability but not push her too much since that someone cares for her and doesn't want her to hurt herself. That someone being our nerdy glasses wearing Clint!

Also did you catch the Avengers reference??

¡Dato curioso! (Spanish): Scarlett Johansson Was Pregnant While Filming Age Of Ultron

Which is pretty crazy because you never would have noticed it!

Vote, comment, follow but only if you believe in the nerdy glasses look!